How do you write about being ashamed of what you are to be proud of? I will try. *** A few weeks ago, a friend and I discussed her options as a mother. She has to travel out of the country and was asking for my input regarding leaving her children with her family back in Cameroon. As we discussed the issue, she mentioned that one of her greatest fears regarding leaving her kids with family to raise is their shaming of children, which they practice even in her presence, talk less of in her absence. Her thoughts triggered several recollections of my own childhood. The number of times I was compared with others: “Why can’t you be like C”, “D who did X or Y, does she have two heads”? “Why can’t you ever do things like X?” I recalled reactions to wetting the bed at 5; being told to stand outside on an anthill while your peers and older relatives alike ululate “shame”. And later on, my name being called on the list of the ‘bottom’ ten to be publicly embarrassed before the entire school as not ‘smart enough’. If you’re Cameroonian you’re familiar with such, and most of us got over it. We laugh about these recollections if at all we remember them. And, unfortunately, a lot of us repeat it. We pass on the buck to our own children because, after all, it worked. Shaming is not an exclusively ‘African’ or ‘Cameroonian’ thing. It’s global. Yet, I think our culture is one of the few which has yet to address the negative effects of this practice, probably because we’re so busy trying to survive physically that we haven’t considered mental and emotional health as much as we should. So we still celebrate shaming. It is seen as an effective instrument to get your kid in order. Competition is healthy after all, so shame one person so they will strive to be like the other. The fact remains: it works. But it works in more ways than one: it works to create unhealthy stereotypes, like in determining what intelligence is; it works to further internalized misogyny and destructive competition between women, who live to avoid shaming or grow to believe they must be better than the next woman and thus bring the other down. Shaming works well, above all, as a destroyer of self-esteem; something we find out too late that we need for literally every part of adulting. Shaming is the bacteria we are infected with as children, one that was to act as a vaccine against complacency and build resistance for a competitive world. Yet this ‘vaccine’ eventually does more harm than good. If not curbed, the ‘bacteria’ grows and spreads. It takes root in our minds, destroys our self-image, tarnishes our ability to empathize with others, and dehumanizes us. We see it regularly, particularly among women. There’s this urge to say “at least I’m better than so and so”, because we feel we can only be enough in comparison. Not by ourselves, not as we are. Comparing women to each other to make one feel lesser than the other is a sadly common and accepted practice. Nearly all entertainment news offers a segment with “who wore it better” comparisons and lifestyle mags intentionally ‘other’ women with articles that compare them and create one set-in-stone ideal. Is it any wonder then that we feel “you are not like other women” is a compliment? As is the case with things which are common, I had taken our shaming culture and competing with other women in stride and for granted. That is to say, though I acknowledged them, they were not things I considered with depth. I’ve been on a journey to self-love for most of my adult life – and I’m still on it –, so I was too busy trying not to think of myself as lesser to bother thinking of someone else as lesser. Yet, recently I was given a rude awakening to this practice and its effects on me – aside from the earlier mentioned conversation with my friend. *** A week ago I posted the following tongue-in-cheek post on Facebook: Tips to know if you should comment on someone’s weight: 1- Did they ask you? 2- Are you their doctor, sponsor/guardian of their health? 3- Are you an intimate friend/partner who is permitted to share any and all opinions? (note that I didn’t ask if you were related, that doesn’t count) If you answered no to all these, here’s the tip: Shut up. As I expected, most of my friends who commented on the post assumed someone had fat-shamed. So they either shared their own experiences with fat-shaming, proffered similarly barbed ‘tips’ to fat-shamers, or tried to assuage me with idioms along the lines of ‘you are not fat, you have fat’. I said nothing. They had assumed wrongly that I had been fat-shamed, yet their reactions proved why I felt bad about being praised for having lost weight recently. Actually, my post was inspired by comments from a few people, who gave me a rude awakening when they approached me to praise me for my recent weight-loss and, in so doing, compared me with either another woman or worse, with myself. The back-handed compliments included: “Ooo Monique I’m so proud of you! See how better you look now! If you had started this sometime back you would be married by now I bet!” “Wow, Monique! You have done it oo! Please tell [X] to follow your example. With your new looks and everything else you will pass those slay queens” “I can see you’re working on your weight; that is good. I’m proud of this new you, she is definitely better” And, with these comments, I felt shame. Shame because, suddenly, my weight-loss journey, something I should be proud of given that it is a testament to my growth in other areas of my life (mental, spiritual, and emotional) was suddenly made shallow. It